News release

From: American Psychological Association

Stories, not shopping lists: Narrative dating profiles draw more interest

Telling the story of your life creates empathy, connection with potential dates

If you want to attract more interest on dating apps, don’t just list your best qualities in your profile – instead, tell a story about your life. Dating profiles that tell a story create empathy and connection and attract more interest from potential dates, according to research published by the American Psychological Association.

“We are fascinated by stories, yet we write our dating profiles like shopping lists,” said study author Gurit Birnbaum, PhD, a psychology professor at Reichman University in Israel. “It’s not height or ambition that makes someone fall for you, it’s your entire story. But people can’t feel that from bullet points.”

The study was published in the journal Psychology of Popular Media.

Birnbaum and her colleagues took their inspiration from marketing research that has long found that storytelling is a useful advertising technique – ads that use narrative techniques to engage consumers and create an emotional connection to products will sell more products. They wanted to see whether the same concept would apply to dating profiles.

The researchers conducted three experiments with 594 total participants. In each, they showed single, young-adult participants dating profiles that presented either narrative or non-narrative descriptions of a potential date. After viewing the profile, participants reported their empathy for and romantic interest in the person.

In each experiment, the exact same information was presented in either narrative or non-narrative form. For example, in the first experiment participants read text profiles. The non-narrative profile included bare facts: The person plays the guitar, studies economics and likes to travel. The narrative version wove those facts into a story, describing how the person’s grandfather had given them a guitar as a child and music became a through-line in their life.

In the second experiment, participants viewed photo profiles. In the non-narrative profiles, the photos were taken in neutral settings, like a park or a street. In the narrative condition, the photos showed the person going about their daily life, doing things like exercising, studying and spending time with friends.

In the third experiment, participants both read text and saw photos of potential dates.

In all three experiments, the researchers found participants had more empathy for the potential dates when they read or viewed the narrative profiles. That increased empathy, in turn, predicted greater romantic interest.

That’s good news, said Birnbaum, for daters who feel burned out by the transactional nature of online dating.

“By humanizing profiles and encouraging genuine emotional engagement, storytelling actively counters the objectifying nature of online dating platforms,” she said. “It can motivate date seekers to view potential dates as fellow human beings rather than mere commodities and foster a sense of connection in an otherwise detached medium of online dating.”